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Friday, March 30, 2007

Here is a true "Go to Guy"

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Updated: March 29, 2007Three of Final Four winning without top recruitsBy Andy KatzESPN.com

ATLANTA -- OK, so Kevin Love is going to UCLA next season. The Bruins are going for the top players in the country. And Love is arguably one of the top two or three players in his recruiting class.

Bill Smith/WireImage.comNo other team in the Final Four has the kind of star power out of high school that Ohio State has.But if you look deeper at the Bruins' roster this season (and last season) -- or Florida's or Georgetown's roster, for that matter -- you'll see that raking in all the McDonald's All-American talent isn't a recipe for a Final Four.

Sure, Ohio State is loaded with three top-20 players in its regular rotation in Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr. and Daequan Cook, and four top-40 players when you add in David Lighty. But the Buckeyes aren't the norm.

UCLA's Arron Afflalo was in the top 35 of his recruiting class, Darren Collison in the top 75 and Lorenzo Mata in the top 100. James Keefe, who doesn't get that much run, was a McDonald's All-American last season. Josh Shipp was one of the top wings out of the West in 2004.

Florida's Al Horford and Joakim Noah were in the top 60 as high school seniors. Neither Taurean Green nor Lee Humphrey was in the top 100. The only McDonald's All-American in the Gators' starting lineup is Corey Brewer, and according to the Florida staff, Brewer was a late add to the McDonald's game because of his defensive ability.

Georgetown's Roy Hibbert was the last guy in the top 100. Jeff Green was in the top 75 and DaJuan Summers, who has shined of late for the Hoyas, was in the top 25 last year.

Georgetown's backcourt is underrated and underappreciated outside of the District for how much Jonathan Wallace and Jessie Sapp developed recently. Hibbert's improvement ranks as one of the best recently of a true post player.

The overall maturation of the players at UCLA and Florida proves yet again that the rankings of recruits don't always translate into NCAA Tournament wins.

Mata and Mbah a Moute, who Howland said does all the dirty work, are good examples of players who have improved quite a bit.

Taurean Green didn't crack the top 100 out of high school; now he's two wins away from his second NCAA title.Mbah a Moute will get a treat this weekend when his father, Camille Moute a Bidias, a high-ranking government official in Cameroon, will see his son (a prince in Cameroon) play organized basketball for the first time Saturday at the Final Four. He'll see just how much his son has improved.

"He has been underappreciated," Howland said of Mbah a Moute.

Florida assistant coach Donnie Jones credits former Florida assistant and current VCU coach Anthony Grant with a lot of the work and evaluation in getting the current Gators stars to Gainesville.

"You never know how they're going to turn out and how they'll fit, but they were all coachable and from professional backgrounds [of the five starters, all except Humphrey and Brewer have parents who were world-class athletes] and all had great character," Jones said.

"The guys that are ranked high sometimes lose sight of what their purpose in college is, especially when they're coming for one year," Jones said.

Jones said Horford probably improved the most, with Noah, the MVP of the Final Four last season, a close second.

Horford's passion, ability to absorb information and desire to work have transformed a marginal post player out of high school into a likely top-seven pick in the June draft, assuming he declares for the NBA.

"His IQ and ability to listen is so high," Jones said. "They are all so selfless and they came back [this season] to improve themselves."

And to get to the Final Four without the high school hype certainly makes it sweeter.